The Age of Ads – Advertising in Times Square Through The Years

Synonymous with New York and a magnet for tourists, Times Square is the epicentre of the Big Apple experience for visitors to the city. Not just famed for the theatres and restaurants that fill the area, its dazzling display of larger than life advertisements have their own pull too.

For some it may be a surprise that Times Square was once an area of seediness and criminality before it was ‘Disneyfied’. The advertisements showing off their fancy products, sitting above the grime and dirt of the street, produced a bizarre juxtaposition. Fritz Lang took inspiration from Times Square at this time for his dystopian film Metropolis.

This mixture of tourism and history gives the Times Square’s advertisements significance, while if they were erected anywhere else today they’d likely be seen as an over-the-top eye sore. In New York, they’re an attraction.